MONTALBAN, Rizal – Ali Mubashar tied an Terrafirma individual scoring record for imports on Saturday during their upset victory over Converge in the PBA 50th Season Commissioner’s Cup.
The Finnish-born import had 50 points, 25 rebounds, and three blocks to carry the Dyip to a 111-100 overtime win over highly-touted Converge for their second straight win and the solo leadership in the team standings.
Mubashar, being a devoted Muslim, was actually fasting due to the Ramadan during the first half of the game, but found strength in the second half where he had 33 points as he finally broke fast by sunset.
READ: Unstoppable Ali Mubashar powers Terrafirma upset versus Converge
The 29-year-old Mubashar had six in overtime to help Terrafirma seal the win.
According to PBA statistics chief Fidel Mangonon, Mubashar equalled franchise record that Lester Prosper set on November 18, 2022 during their 124-114 overtime win over NLEX in the 2022-23 Commissioner’s Cup.
“First half, I was fasting,” Mubashar revealed. “I couldn’t really breathe. I was going up and down, trying to do my best. But if it wasn’t for my teammates that was helping me carry the load and trusting me to just keep performing and just keep doing what I can do to help the team. Shoutout to them. Nothing would be possible without those guys.”
“We have special guys in the locker room and I did it because of their trust and belief in me,” he added.
Mubashar is aware of the magnitude of their win to the Terrafirma squad known for being cellar-dwellers.
“Converge is a really good team. Really good team. They got a lot of bigs, of course. So shoutout to them. They did everything they can. Shots just happened to fall towards the second half. Guys just gave me the spots, the right spots. All grace to God. Without Him, man, I wouldn’t be alive right now, I’ll tell you that much,” said Mubashar.
During the interview on the TV broadcast, Mubashar was joined by his Terrafirma teammates, shades of how the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA do things after every win.
Mubashar looks forward to the next games of Terrafirma where he believes that the team has the potential to make a decent run this conference.
“We got a lot of guys on the team. We got some mixture of vets. We got some young guys that's really hungry. We got some experienced guys. The whole point is the fact that thanks to the staff, our head coach, our assistant coaches, everybody is like, they're bringing this good environment, fun environment to work in," he said.
"Every day, we come into work, it's fun. Yet everything we do is straight quality. We try to execute the best we can and stay together. Main thing was to stay together, and even in the (TV interview), you see that we are staying together and that’s the most important thing.”.
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